Google in talks to buy Twitch live-streaming video service for $1 billion

Google is about to announce it will buy Twitch for $1 billion, if the latest rumours are true.

According to Venture Beat, which cited unnamed sources, Google has already signed a deal with live-streaming video platform Twitch, though Google hasn't officially announced anything as of yet. Venture Beat has also claimed Google-owned YouTube would be in charge of the acquisition. Keep in mind Variety also reported in May that Google had reached a preliminary agreement to acquire Twitch for $1 billion in cash. At the time, the report said Twitch would bolster YouTube.

Twitch's primary focus since launching in 2011 has been on e-sports and video gaming, rather than online video clips. The San Francisco-based company has more than 50 million monthly users, and each user watches an average of 106 minutes of video every day and has access to features like the ability to upload and watch gameplay videos from Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles as well as PC. Twitch generates revenue through both ads and subscriptions.

YouTube, which pipes about 6 billion hours of video a month to more than 1 billion users worldwide, could certainly use Twitch's features to entice gamers, especially with hosted livestreams or real-time videos of popular games. It's not clear however just how Google would integrate Twitch into YouTube. After all, the deal hasn't even been confirmed.

Pocket-lint has contacted both Google and Twitch for a comment, and we will update as soon as we learn more.